


Prowlweek Prompt Fills

by helloshepard



Series: helloshepard's TRANSFORMERS fics (2020- ? ) [7]
Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, M/M, Other, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Prompt Fill, Rating will change, Target Practice, prowl week
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-19
Updated: 2020-04-22
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:07:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23738833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/helloshepard/pseuds/helloshepard
Summary: Collection of ficlets for Prowl Week.
Relationships: Past Prowl/Tarantulas, Prowl & Cerebros, Prowl & Cosmos
Series: helloshepard's TRANSFORMERS fics (2020- ? ) [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1789297
Comments: 6
Kudos: 29
Collections: Prowl Week





	1. "Crash" (Prowl & Cosmos)

Prowl was out of his element.

Sort of.

Secured to the hull of the ship with only vibrant green magna-clamps, Prowl navigated the exterior of the ship slowly, heading towards the top of the ship, as far from prying optics as he could get. It wasn’t as uncomfortable as, say, having yourself reformatted to become the head of a combiner, but it was still a strange feeling, being somewhere novel. He didn’t make a habit of wandering in open space when it wasn’t strictly necessary (hence the relative novelty of the experience), but other mechanisms did.

The one in front of him, busy loading targets into the catapult, had a habit of doing just that.

For all the guff Cosmos kicked up about being ignored and left out of things, he certainly didn’t try very hard to embed himself in the Autobot team dynamic. Prowl had never been able to figure out why: Cosmos _wanted_ attention, yet the second he got it, he bolted and ended up out here: on a self-imposed patrol or something equally solitary. In this case, it was target shooting.

The target disks were made from compacted scrap metal and whatever debris a mechanism could scavenge from a battlefield. After the Necro-Titan and everything that followed, such materials had been readily available—and it seemed Cosmos was putting them to good use.

Prowl switched on his radio. He didn’t doubt Cosmos knew he was here—the other Autobot’s sensornet was far superior to Prowl’s, especially in space—but it wouldn’t do to surprise him while he was holding an rifle that was nearly as long as Prowl was wide.

Cosmos was jumpy enough as it was.

〈 Cosmos. 〉

Cosmos whipped around. Prowl noted the way he clutched the weapon a little tighter than he had a second previous, and took a measured step to the side. 

〈 Oh. Hey, Prowl. 〉 Cosmos relaxed, and inclined his head to the half-loaded catapult. 〈 Come to shoot? 〉

〈 No. 〉

Beneath their feet, the ship rumbled. Prowl flinched, anticipating an alert summoning them back to the ship’s interior to handle the _Ark’s_ latest misadventure. Cosmos sent over a glyph indicating exasperation, tempered with vague amusement, reverting back to text only when Prowl sent over a  〈?〉

〈 They’ve been “remodeling” for the last hour. Nothing extreme enough to attract your ire, but still irritating. 〉 Cosmos slotted in the last target.  〈 Their habsuite block is right next to mine, you know. 〉

〈 …sorry. 〉 Was that something he was supposed to be sorry about? Prowl wasn’t sure. No one had given out habsuite assignments—by the time he had gotten around to the issue, the ship was already well on its way to Earth.  〈 Would you like me to reassign them? 〉

Cosmos shrugged. 〈 Better me having them as neighbors than…I dunno. Arcee? 〉

Prowl tried to imagine that. Arcee had shared her opinion of the newest ‘Autobots’ with him ad nauseam: he didn’t like them any more than she did, but for the moment they were _useful._

He tried to put the fact that they had drilled their way into his brain module and patched in _functional_ gestalt coding, turning Prowl from a single solitary _him_ into a _them._

Could he get rid of them, now? Even if he _wanted_ to, could he send them away? And if it came to it, could he put a gun to their heads and pull the trigger? 

He didn’t think so.

〈 Here. 〉 Gently, Prowl pushed past Cosmos and took control of the target catapult. Less gently, he pushed all thoughts of gestalt coding and combiners out of his main processor. 

〈 Thanks. 〉

〈 Ready? 〉

Cosmos nodded. 

Prowl fired. 

He watched as Cosmos took aim and pulled the trigger. The shot grazed the target, sending it careening off to the right at a sharp angle. They were in orbit half a million miles from Earth’s moon—taking into account the impact and its new trajectory, it would crash into the moon approximately 40 Earth hours from now. 

〈 Adjust your aim by five degrees, 〉 Prowl said, then belatedly realized that Cosmos probably wasn’t looking for pointers.  〈 If you want. 〉

Thankfully, Cosmos didn’t seem to mind. Prowl adjusted his position accordingly to ensure the second disk would follow the first as closely as possible. 

Cosmos fired. 

The disk exploded in a hail of shrapnel. Cosmos cheered, though to Prowl’s limited emotional recognition software, it seemed…flat. 

Prowl refrained from asking about it. Cosmos wasn’t one to needlessly bottle up his feelings—especially if someone was available for him to vent to. So either his frustrations were directed at Prowl, which meant venting would likely do nothing but make the problem worse, or…Prowl wasn’t sure, exactly. 

〈 Another? 〉 Prowl asked, instead.

〈 Go for it. 〉

They were halfway through the stack of targets before Cosmos spoke again. 

〈 What are we doing out here, Prowl? 〉

Prowl had been adjusting the trajectory of the next disk, but he looked up to take in the tilt of the other Autobot’s head, the way his armor bristled. 

〈 Target shooting. 〉

〈 I mean— 〉 Cosmos shifted his grip to hold the rifle with one hand and gestured back at the ship. 〈 What’s all this about? 〉

〈 We are looking for Alpha Trion. 〉 Had he been ignoring the multiple, ship-wide briefings Prowl had been conducting throughout their journey? 

〈 Right. 〉 Judging by the movement of his armor, Cosmos seemed to be sighing. 

〈 War’s over, Prowl. 〉  The message was tinged with exasperation. 

〈 Is it? 〉 Prowl grimaced and hoped Cosmos hadn’t seen it.  〈 Starscream has control of Cybertron, _Megatron_ is gallivanting across the galaxy in a ship—not even an Autobot ship! A privately owned vessel that _Optimus Prime commandeered_ for his own purposes! Because he’s too— 〉 Prowl gritted his teeth.  〈 _Sentimental._ 〉

〈 I know, Prowl. 〉 The text was even; not exasperated or irritated as the previous messages had been. Just patient. Prowl wasn’t sure whether or not he should be irritated, or if Cosmos was just being…nice.  〈 I was there. 〉

〈 But what are you gonna do about it? 〉 Cosmos inclined his head back to the ship once again.  〈 You and your pack of neon green followers. 〉

〈 Are you one of them? 〉 Prowl nudged Cosmos’s vibrant paint. He wondered if that qualified as a joke. 

〈 You know they’ve been asking who does my paint, 〉 Cosmos muttered.  〈 I think they’re gonna try and paint _you_ green next. 〉

〈 Absolutely not. 〉

〈 Try telling Hook that. 〉 Cosmos seemed to be smiling—his glyphs indicated amusement, at least. The mood seemed to lighten, though for the life of him, Prowl could not pinpoint _why_ he thought such a thing.  〈 According to him, you’re one memo away from officially changing your name to ‘Boss’. 〉

〈 _Ugh._ 〉

〈 Anyway. Yeah. 〉 Cosmos hesitated, then set a hand on Prowl’s shoulder.  〈 I’m here for you. Besides—what would I do if you _weren’t_ here? 〉

〈 I’m sure you could find something to keep yourself occupied. 〉 Prowl nodded at the catapult.  〈 Good for another round? 〉

〈 Absolutely. 〉


	2. High; past Prowl/Tarantulas

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prowl gets rid of the evidence.

The remains of the lab burned quickly.

When Verity saw the beached remains of bloated, techno-organic whale on Facebook, she had told Springer, who sent a terse message to Prowl informing him that his mess was ready to be cleaned up.

Neither Springer nor Verity were there when Prowl arrived.

There was still no love lost between the EDC and the Autobots, but Arcee and Jazz had called in a favor when Prowl asked, giving him three hours to dispose of any Cybertronian technology before the wall of electronic silence fell and the Facebook photos went viral.

He had nearly tripped over the rocks that served as a barrier between the beach and the road. The snow itself was deeper than he expected, but didn’t pose a real problem: the average human would have sunk to their waist, but for Prowl, it was barely a second of surprise when his feet sank in slightly deeper than anticipated. He had calculated the length of time it would take the tides to push up whatever remained of the lab; most of the three hours would consist of collecting everything as it washed up on the beach before setting it all aflame.

He used his holomatter avatar for the first hour, but quickly realized the locals had no desire to watch him—save for an occasional truck trundling down the road, Front Street was deserted. Even the pop-up tents the humans had set up on the sea itself had been temporarily abandoned.

Regardless, his root mode was far more efficient, and in no time he had collected the piles of waterlogged datapads, a soggy box of photonic crystals, and more techno-organic flesh than he thought possible.

With one foot, Prowl broke through the sheet of ice covering the sand. It was hidden beneath the snowdrifts—an unexpected feature of this strange, cold place, but it did not pose a problem. When he was finished, the pile was nearly as tall as he was, and twice as wide. 

Even if he wanted to save something from the fire, even if the corrosive seawater had not worked its way into the circuitry of Mesothulas— _Tarantulas_ —’s datapads and monitors and ruined them beyond any chance of recovery, his ship was hardly big enough for _him._

After this, he would need to acquire another ship. The one he bought from Cerebros had suited his purpose well until this point, but his mission had changed. Soundwave had provided him with the (irritatingly vague) coordinates of several mecha: a neutral Cybertronian dire-wraith, an organic, Throttlebots. Soundwave’s explanation for the request had been nearly as vague as the telepathically-acquired coordinates: something loomed at the edges of Soundwave’s consciousness. Something big enough to make itself known from across the galaxy. Something potentially dangerous enough to prompt Soundwave to reach out to Prowl, of all mechs.

Normally such anecdotal, qualitative evidence would have been discarded—he did not place much stock in such things, _especially_ coming from a Decepticon whose primary function had been (and very possibly still _was)_ to spread lies and propaganda.

But Soundwave had come to him—he had _offered_ to leave his precious commune and accompany Prowl. He had refused: being cooped up with Soundwave on a ship sounded like a special form of torture, but…

Prowl sighed. He threw the lit match onto the pile. It burned effectively—if there was one thing Cybertronians had perfected, it was quick, efficient destruction. His eye was drawn to the quickly-forming columns of smoke until it went so high he could no longer calculate its trajectories. Pre-injury, he might have been able to follow the smoke until it was little more than nearly-invisible wisps, but now, his calculations quickly faded to error messages and [????].

He wondered if Mesothulas—Tarantulas—had kept any of their work. Any photos of the two of them (of Prowl, really) had been systematically destroyed well before Tarantulas’s forced exile into the Noisemaze.

All that might have remained of their time together was here, stacked haphazardly into a flaming pile of debris that would be reduced to ash within the next 43 minutes.

Prowl allowed himself to sink to his knees.

He allotted himself two minutes to express his grief. His paintjob had never been colorful enough to visually express grief; perhaps the paint on what remained of his chevron had dulled to a washed-out red. Not that it mattered: he was alone.

The small, rapidly shrinking bit of his pride was glad that to the humans, his sobs would sound like nothing more than a particularly loud engine stalling.

His internal timer beeped. The two minutes were up, but Prowl did not move to stand. Instead he settled on the ground, ignoring the icy, melted slush as it crept under his plating. He looked up at the sky. This far north, the sun would not go down for another hour and twenty-three minutes. Prowl watched the cloudless sky, and idly wondered how long he would have to lie still to begin calculating the trajectories of the stars.

He was alone.

The realization had been prickling at the edges of his awareness for some time—ever since he left Luna-1, actually. His reunion with Tarantulas, however brief, had cemented that fact. Whatever remained of his Diplomatic Corps had died on the _Lost Light,_ and even Optimus…

Even Optimus had found a replacement for him. Soundwave possessed a different skillset than Prowl, but what he lacked in tactical abilities, his loyalty and telepathy more than made up for any technical shortcomings.

For a brief, jealous moment, Prowl considered taking Soundwave up on his offer, if only to get _him_ away from Optimus and leave the Prime without a Prowl-equivalent. The notion was discarded as quickly as Prowl thought of it: he might be angry and he might be so, so alone, but…he would not do that to Optimus.

When next he looked up, the blaze of purple-white flames had dwindled down to deep red embers.

Prowl got to his feet. He contacted Arcee and notified her the EDC was cleared to enter the town, then remotely decloaked his ship.

He allowed himself a final look at the smoking pile of the last remnants of his life as an Autobot, then began the walk to his ship.


	3. Law/Crime: Prowl & Cerebros

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prowl commits a crime.

“I’m serious. Haven’t you ever wondered about subspace?”

Cerebros was perched on the edge of the sink, legs swinging idly as he watched Prowl watch him.

“Like, how do a mech’s subspace pockets _not_ accidentally transfer their stuff to another mech? And what about subspace communication—better yet, subspace _transfer?”_ Cerebros waved his hands and hoped he wasn’t overselling it. “Sometimes I think I ended up in the wrong field.”

“You would rather have studied subspace than mnemosurgery?”

“That was a joke.”

“Ah.”

“Anyway.” Cerebros hopped off the sink and gestured for Prowl to follow. “Since you’re not doing anything, I figured you wouldn’t mind helping me with a little side project? Some charity work?”

“‘Charity work’?”

“Yep.” Now that the Roboids were gone, the number of people of Luna-1 had dwindled down to four. Five, if you counted the emotional-support turbofox Max was in the process of adopting. Cerebros himself was neutral about animals, but the delight in Max’s optics was…contagious, to say the least. The halls he and Prowl walked through were empty, but well-maintained. Much to the dismay of Titan aficionados everywhere, this particular Titan had slipped back into stasis after the Sentinel Prime debacle. Cerebros couldn’t blame him. “Luna-1 has energon aplenty—according to some, it’s the last source of _real_ energon in the galaxy.”

“Really.” Prowl didn’t sound convinced. Beneath his mask, Cerebros grimaced. Prowl wasn’t buying it.

Which meant Cerebros would just have to try harder.

“There’s a small-but-growing group of mechs on Cybertron who won’t touch the new stuff.” Cerebros led Prowl to the storage room—practically a closet, but filled to the brim with crates packed with bottles. “To be honest, I can’t blame them. Who _knows_ what might’ve contaminated the energon reserves when Cybertron was restored.”

“A reasonable assumption.”

“Of course, you know it’s bunk.” Not waiting for Prowl to actually _agree_ to anything, Cerebros grabbed a crate and handed it to Prowl. “Wheeljack and another half-dozen reputable engineers tested it. It’s chemically identical to ‘real’ energon. No Ore-13 related burnout, no weird resurrection nonsense…anyway, some people _still_ won’t drink it.”

Thankfully, Prowl accepted the load. Cerebros grabbed another crate and led Prowl down yet another hall.

“So you send them energon from Luna-1.”

“Yeah. Blurr’s been nice enough to let me use the subspace hatch in his bar. They’re, uh, a little sensitive about being _judged,_ so…no space bridge. Too much attention.”

“Hm.”

Before Prowl could think too much about that, Cerebros activated the subspace hatch and began placing bottles inside. “The hatch only takes a dozen bottles at a time. It’s easy, but—”

“Boring.”

“Exactly!” Congratulating himself on a job well done, Cerebros patted Prowl on the shoulder. “Blurr’s code is 114.8x9. I’ll go grab another crate.”

Prowl didn’t protest, so Cerebros nodded to himself and left Prowl to his work. He took another crate from the closet and headed back to the transport room, only to see Prowl sitting cross-legged on the floor, with a bottle of engex in his hand. The crate was half empty.

“Look, I can explain—”

“You are smuggling subspace-filtered engex to Blurr.” Prowl’s voice was as flat as ever, though Cerebros thought he detected a hint of tired disinterest. “And you have made me an accomplice.”

“You’re not a cop!” Cerebros protested. “You’re not even an Autobot—you don’t have the power to arrest me!”

“But _they—”_ Prowl inclined his head towards the outer corridors, where Red Alert and Max were working. “Can.”

Cerebros swallowed.

“Fine. You got me.” Cerebros sighed and set down the crate. “I’m smuggling subspace-filtered engex to Blurr.”

“Why.”

Cerebros shrugged. “Ever since the Lost Light…disappeared? Died? I’ve had a backlog of engex. So…I had to offload it _somehow._ And Blurr deserves it a hell of a lot more than Earth or that stupid hippie commune out on Jupiter. _”_

“You could have dumped it.”

“No no, see—Swerve bought half the stuff with his own shanix. I bought the other half. So dumping it would be a _total_ waste of credits. And Swerve had some kind of hero worship going on with Blurr, so I figured…” Cerebros felt himself deflating. It had sounded a _lot_ better in his head. “I might as well?”

Prowl traced the rim of the bottle. Cerebros could _hear_ him thinking.

“A year ago, I would have used this for blackmail,” Prowl said. “To get you to…I don’t know. Spy on Red Alert and Maximus. Keep a lid on the space bridge.”

“And now?”

“Maximus might be fond of you, but he wouldn’t be able to overlook this,” mused Prowl. But he hadn’t stormed off to tell the others, which could only be a good sign.

“So you’re…not gonna tell him?” Cerebros guessed. “We’re gonna finish up the delivery, split the shanix, and agree never to talk about this again?”

“No.”

“Oh.” Cerebros grabbed a bottle and popped it open. “Soooo…”

“I don’t care what you do with the engex,” Prowl said. “And I’m not going to tell Maximus or Red Alert.”

“And the catch is…?” Cerebros didn’t _dare_ hope he would escaping this unscathed. Roping Prowl into smuggling had been stupid enough, but he hadn’t lied—he _did_ have a huge backlog of engex, he and Swerve _had_ been business partners, and—

“I can’t control you, Cerebros,” Prowl said, and for the first time, Cerebros realized how _tired_ the mech looked. “I can’t control _anyone._ And I’m beginning to realize maybe I don’t want to.”

“…oh.” And now Cerebros felt bad. “You can, uh, pretend to arrest me? Will that make you feel better?”

Prowl snorted.

“Probably not.”

“Got it.” Prowl didn’t seem terribly inclined to speak again, so Cerebros let the conversation die down as he tried to think of what to do next.

A minute passed.

Cerebros nodded at the bottle in Prowl’s hand. “You know—these bottles _are_ pretty small. We could probably get through these bottles in a couple hours, if we work together?”

Prowl stared at him, looking like a turbofox caught in a mech’s headlights. Feeling incredibly awkward, Cerebros grabbed another bottle from the crate.

“Cheers to…? Luna-1? To fresh starts?”

Prowl raised his bottle.

“To partnerships.”


End file.
